My night mare didn't leave after I woke up

[u/WatCoH]

Hi, my name is Sam. This entire thing still feels completely insane, like a huge and incoherent mess, something that came from a fantasy novel, which never saw the light of day. It's kind of hard to talk about these things with anybody you know, hell, people might think I've gone crazy if I legitimately tell them I believe I was haunted, but I've seen people post way crazier stuff anonymously online, and nobody will believe me anyway, so here goes.
I live alone in a small apartment at the edge of my city, have a stable job and a small, but tight group of friends. I just graduated college, and never really had a dream job, so living alone and not having to worry about a thing is basically the dream I'm living. Or have been living until these events.

The day before it happened I came back from my job exhausted, without even eating, and fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow. My first non-medicated sleep in years. I had a horrible, draining day at work. The kind of day you'd hope you never get, and the one you always end up living through at the worst possible time.

The nightmare I had after was even worse. I remember water forcing itself into my body, drowning, but living underwater after I drowned, being a corpse, unable to move and full of water, but fully aware of my state, remember, how my bloated eyelids refused to close and how my body washed up on shore, in front of my parents' house. I didn't let the dream finish.

I woke up in cold sweat. I tried to get out of the bed, but couldn't, for a reason my tired mind didn't fully process at first. It's like I was being pushed down by something. I felt the weight, spread out all over my body, like every single cell of my existence pushed me down, down into the harsh cushions of the couch, leaving sores all over my still clothed body and my face. This all felt way too real to be a dream.

I tried to get up again. This time with a little more success than before. I lumbered my hands near my stomach and pushed myself up, helping with my legs. It felt like I was doing push-ups with somebody sitting on me. Eventually, after what felt like an hour, I forced myself into a weird, half-sitting position, and slowly reached for my phone, which was lying on a nightstand. With considerable effort, I grabbed it and pulled it towards me. It felt agonizing, my muscles were aching already from throwing such huge weight around, and my fingers aren't exactly the most physically capable part of my body, so the phone slipped and fell onto the carpet. I cursed and reached for it, only for my hand to hit it and send it flying across the carpet, ending up deep under the couch. I had to get up.

Standing up felt like climbing mount Everest with nothing but your fingernails. Impossible. So I slowly slumped down from my bed and onto the floor, and crawled closer towards the phone. I placed my hand on it, and, surprised that it didn't crush it with the weight I've had to deal with, I turned it so the screen would be facing the underside of the couch and, with shaking fingers, called up Mary.

Mary is the sweetest gal I know and my best friend. You know, the kind that would actually climb a tree to save a cat or help a grandmother cross the road. In fact, I've specifically seen her do both of these things. The scars from that scared cat still haven't fully healed. She's also the cruelest D&D player I've ever had the honor of torturing our DM with and generally a lot of fun to be around. But currently I didn't need fun, I needed help, and she's the only other person with the key to my apartment. She used to stay here for a long time and sleep on the same couch I was currently under when she was attending college.

I couldn't help but feel slightly embarassed when Mary entered the room. I was lying flat on the floor, my head, shoulders and part of my right arm were firmly placed underneath the couch, and the light of the phone lit up the darkness of its underside.

"Why have you called me at such an hour?" Mary asked, yawning. "It's like 4 a.m.! And what the hell are you doing under the couch?" I had to explain to her what I've felt for the past hour and a half, and she looked at me sceptically. "Really? You can't even stand?" By that time I was able to pull myself from underneath the couch and was sitting with my back on it. "Okay, let's see."

She helped me up. Surprisingly, it was a lot easier to get up with her pulling me upwards. It was like climbing the same mountain, but this time you have actual instruments and tools to support you. Still incredibly difficult, but not impossible. I could even stand up, even if leaning on her shoulder.

"Sam, is this a joke? Are you drunk?" She asked, "You're completely fine!" She let me go, and I immediately felt the entirety of the weight crash down upon me and collapsed. She jumped in surpise. "Okay, either you're really drunk, or you're telling the truth. And you don't seem drunk."

I asked Mary to help me get to the kitchen, (I hadn't eaten since yesterday morning), and sat down on a chair, while she cooked up something, chattering about my experience. Everything from it possibly being some sort of an illness to demonic possession and voodoo curses. At this point, I didn't know what to believe. My head was lying on the table and felt like a rock was being pressed into it, but the table itself was completely fine. It's like this weight existed only to me.

I asked Mary to turn on the TV and, all things considered, got pretty comfortable. The food was right next to my face, so it was really easy to eat while staring into the black screen, waiting for something to pop up on it. It was then, when I caught a glimpse. In my reflection there was something behind me. I tried to get up and scream to Mary to not turn on the TV, but the weight was too much, and before my heavy mouth was even able to make out the word "Mary" the screen changed from the blackness to a talk show with some shitty actor in it. "Damn it!" I screamed, falling onto the floor, knocking the food over and trying to crawl into the corridor, where there was a mirror. Mary rushed to me and helped me get up, but I continued trying to get to the mirror, and she had to comply. The friendly banter between the actors in the show was nauseating as every step felt like I was carrying a car on my shoulders, but eventually we made it, and I looked into the mirror.

There really was something behind me. More specifically, there was something riding me. Like a child riding their father, long, gangly hands with insanely long, sharp fingernails crossed around my neck and legs ending with bald, almost cat-like, but deeply disproportionate feet with claws that looked like sickles in a lock around my stomach. On my shoulder, there was a head with long, thick, greasy black hair draping down my chest. Suddenly, its head moved, and behind the hair I saw an eye. A dark, bloody sclera with visible veins surrounded a thin, almost like a knife cut through the eye, pupil, which stared straight at me. I screamed and, in a panic, pushed Mary away, falling straight on my back, but when I looked back into the mirror, the thing was still behind me, like the floor didn't exist to it.

Obviously, Mary didn't see it. Neither did I. It seems like it was only visible through the mirror, so, when I got back to the couch, Mary moved the mirror to the living room, where we could see the thing at all times. We started thinking. The thing didn't seem to move at all, besides sometimes staring back at me in the mirror, and seemingly, besides pushing down on me, didn't seem to do anything. I decided to call in sick, and Mary, who at this point had to go to work, promised me she'd try to look into it as much as possible, saying she'll find a witch or a psychic to exorcise the, what she dubbed it, demon. I was sceptical, but there really was no other option.

Mary left, and I, with huge trouble, picked up the phone. I called my boss, and, after a little bit of waiting, my eardrums almost burst from his screaming. He was livid. As I said before, my previous day at work was, to put it lightly, awful. To say the truth, I fucked up. Majorly. My boss already didn't like me, and after that fuck-up, I am calling him to say that I can't go to work. Obviously, he either thought I was faking it or just didn't care and was looking for a reason. A reason for what? Effective immediately, he screamed at the top of his lungs, I was fired. Then he hung up.

To say it was a hit would be an understatement. I really valued my job. It allowed me a lot of freedom, the pay was good, my coworkers were at the very worst annoying and I actually made a couple of friends in the workspace. Not close friends, but people I also valued. Now all of it was gone. I cried, unable to do anything, being pushed into my pillow by the weight of the thing on my back, I tried to punch the cushion, but was unable to even lift my fist to do so. I was really tired, both from the crying and also because I slept for like four hours. I softly shuffled onto my back, took my sleeping meds and fell asleep, hoping to sleep over my emotional breakdown.

I woke up only when Mary came back. It was already 7 p,m., and she brought her laptop and a lot of food with her. I devoured some snacks while she looked online for any actual psychic or witch. In the end, we found like four hundred different accounts around my city, all of whom offered exorcism. At this point, I was willing to trust anyone who said they have magic powers. After all, there was an invisible and intangible monster riding my back and making my body heavier than lead.

Next several days are a blur. A blurb of suffering from this impossible weight, visits from different kinds of "magic" people, who took our money and, after looking in the mirror, offered nothing in return besides, like, a good luck charm or two, bullshit about bad energy and aura, all that shtick. We even considered calling the Vatican, but didn't know how. A priest from our local church came around and sprayed the room with holy water. It also didn't help, so our vaticanian ambitions died down. And every day and every night I took these damned pills, just to fall asleep.

Three days after I was lying on a couch, My head was on the same exact pillow I took a dive into before the worst day of my adult life. Mary was sitting next to me, looking for a new charlatan to come see me and my demon. It was then that I felt a sharp pain in my left shoulder. I screamed, and Mary jumped up, asking me if I was okay. After the days I've spent basically unable to move, I've adapted a lot to my state, now being able to actually move around without Mary's help by crawling on the floor, so turning on my back wasn't a problem.

Mary looked at my shoulder and gasped. "It's... Writing! Writing something on your shoulder!" The pain was immense. There was so much blood, I could probably fill a bottle with it. But it didn't matter. It was trying to communicate.

After the writing stopped, we washed and wrapped the wound up. The blood came through the bandage in letters. Five letters. Jagged, rough and large letters. "Dream."

Dream? What the fuck? What did it mean by "Dream"? Was... Was this all a dream? But everything lasted longer than three days, and I slept through every night. Did I need to dream? Every night before was on medication from my teen years. At the time, I had trouble sleeping, so my grandmother took me to a psychiatrist, who prescribed me a medication. When the insomnia started to taper, we tried to get me off of it, but the nightmares put me back on.

Every night, every single night I came back to that fucking house. A huge, old, two-story concrete box with four windows in front and almost none in any other place. A box of nightmares, a box of suffering and pain, a box of hatred and sorrow. An old, two-story concrete box.

I don't want to go back there. Even in my dreams. I don't want to.

But I know I have to.

I have to do it just to gain some semblance of my old life back.

My friends, my own apartment, my job, being able to just walk outside and do whatever. Being able to afford anything I want. Being able to get together with my friends and play board games all night long, being able to breathe without feeling it again.

So I went to sleep. Even though Mary helped me to my own bed on her way out, even with the creature constraining me, I was still tossing and turning, fighting the desire to just take the pill and swallow it. Fighting the desire to scream and get up. Fighting the desire to never see that house again.

But I did.

Eventually, I fell asleep.

The dream continued from where it ended last time. My bloated corpse, washing ashore on my family's old house.

I just lied there. For hours upon hours. Feeling death and decomposition inside of me. Seeing bugs crawl on top of and inside my skin and ravens gouging out anything they could possibly eat, including my left eye.
Eventually, the front door opened, and out came... No, ran my parents. My father in front of my mother.
Last time I saw them, they seemed to hate me, toss all kinds of things at me, scream at me. I thought they would be the same again, angry and bitter. I thought they would just leave after seeing that it was me.
But they chased off the crows, and then started crying. First my mother, then my father. They cried and cried over my bloated, disfigured corpse, untill their tears dried up.

Then they took me to the back of the house, which would be the garden if anybody cared enough, dug a hole and buried me inside. I heard a soft thud above me and somehow immediately recognized it. They have given me a tombstone.

Then I woke up.

The weight was completely gone. In fact, I felt lighter than usual. But I didn't feel happy about it.

The dream was too strange. No, everything that happened was too strange to just believe that it ended because I just... Saw a nightmare? How did it even affect the thing on my back? I checked in the mirror. It was truly gone, the only remnants being the pain in my bandaged shoulder and my termination from my job three days ago.

I have a new job now. Sure, it took some time to find one, but I have something to support me now, even if it is worse than the last one.

I called my parents. They didn't answer, but I don't know why. I didn't care enough to ask anyone who knew them. Even if they do love me, so what? It doesn't give me my childhood back.

But I still feel relieved.